It has been five weeks since a young
lad committed suicide with a handgun in the commons area of the local
high school. The incident made the front page of the local newspaper and
was the top story for several days running on local news channels. It
wasn’t long before recriminations were flying fast and furious, many accusing
the local media of overstepping the bounds of ethics in their reporting
of the incident. The local school district superintendent wrote, “ … media
were irresponsible … the line was crossed. Shame on you.” This in reference
to the reporting of the name of the suicide victim and material from the
victim’s website including a picture.

Yet on the very public school district
website, this same school district superintendent engaged in what can
only be termed the melodramatic, going into great detail about the aftermath
of the actual incident, lock down procedures, securing the scene, shielding
students from the scene, a dramatic description of the potential danger
to those who “ignored their own safety” in the giving of first aid to
the victim, and a detailed description of what was discovered in a backpack
found near the scene of the suicide — all information that served no relevant
purpose other than to dramatize. The superintendent’s letter was also
sent to every parent with a child at the high school. And the superintendent
thinks the media stepped over the line? As if the incident itself were
not tragic enough, the superintendent had no qualms about dramatizing
the incident and further broadcasting his sensationalism through the whole
of the already shocked and saddened community just as did the news media.
Rather like the pot calling the kettle black.

However, in all of the back and forth
since, not one word has been published concerning why this young lad took
his life. In a journal he published on his website, he wrote, “As tragic
as it is, I have very little to live for. But as long as I have nothing
to die for, I’m okay.” He wrote that he felt guilty about wanting to kill
himself and made reference to wanting to go to church.

In the next few days the district is
sponsoring a “community meeting” to receive “input” from the community
on how to make the schools safer. The invite contains all the usual buzz
words for the facilitated meeting in which the outcomes are predetermined
and the purpose of the meeting is to

facilitate the people into ownership of the
predetermined outcomes;

establish a rah-rah club in support of the predetermined
outcomes;

make it appear that the school district is working
on the problem;

provide some measure of protection against any
dissention that might arise; and

determine where the people are as opposed to
where they should be if the outcomes are to be achieved.

I can predict at least two of the predetermined
outcomes:

If you know of someone who you think “might”
have a problem, you should get in touch with the local mental health
services or school counselors;

More mental health services provided in and
through the school.

And will all of this have the desired
affect? Yes, but the affect isn’t what people would suppose: curing the
problem. The affect will be more government intrusion into the home and
family. Recently, the Presidents New Freedom Commission on Mental Health
issued a report on
mental health, establishing goals and recommendations for mental health.
Goal 2 of that particular report recommends:

“Strengthen early childhood mental health interventions:
Implement a national effort to focus on mental health needs of young
children and their families that includes screening, assessment, intervention,
training, financing of services.”

The “recommendations” of the report
are being implemented in the states right now via federal block grants.
To see where your state is in this process, click
here. All of this, of course, is the next step in achieving Goal 1
of Goals 2000: readiness to learn. And the groundwork for implementing
the above recommendations was laid in school districts across the nation
via the federal Readiness to Learn Grants to states and school districts
in the 1990’s.

Is any of this going to help or cure
the problems facing our society today concerning guns and violence in
schools? No, it won’t. The only thing that is going to cure the problem
is to get rid of psycho-education (aka, systems education, progressive
education, outcome-based education) in which the goal is not to discipline
the mind of the child such that the child has a vast knowledge base on
which to draw in articulating a reasoned conclusion as an individual,
but rather to use the classroom to alter the child’s belief system such
that he/she will accommodate the “created future” as “no deity will save
us, we must save ourselves” — the “world class worker” (as in “workers
of the world, unite”) of tomorrow.

Sources:

1 Goals 2000; Public Law 103-227;
103rd Congress; March 31, 1994. 2 Humanist Manifesto II; 1973. 3 Laszlo, Ervin; A Strategy For The Future; The Systems Approach
To World Order; New York: George Braziller; 1974. 4 Report of the Presidents New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.
5 United States Department of Health and Human Services; Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Administration

Mother and wife, Stuter has spent the past ten
years researching systems theory with a particular emphasis on education.
She home schooled two daughters, now grown and on their own. She has worked
with legislators, both state and federal, on issues pertaining to systems
governance and education reform. She networks nationwide with other researchers
and citizens concerned with the transformation of our nation. She has
traveled the United States and lived overseas. Web site: www.learn-usa.com
E-Mail: lmstuter@learn-usa.com

Is any of this going to help or
cure the problems facing our society today concerning guns and violence
in schools? No, it won’t. The only thing that is going to cure the problem
is to get rid of psycho-education